25 Best Directors In The World Right Now

12. Paul Thomas Anderson

Most Recent Film: Inherent Vice (2014) Next Film: N/A Best Film: There Will Be Blood (2007) Paul Thomas Anderson is kind of an outsider; his movies are strange, often impenetrable affairs - at times they seem purposely designed to alienate modern audiences. And no movie sums up this feeling like his most recent film, the semi-baffling and probably brilliant half-masterpiece that is Inherent Vice. Starring Joaquin Phoenix and based on the book of the same name, Vice is set in 1970 and is the sort of film that only Anderson could have made - long, confusing, with those trademark flashes of genius scattered throughout. Most people felt indifferent towards it. But most didn't see it more than once. Which is to say that Paul Thomas Anderson films seem to hold up better on a second viewing. They're also about a divisive as they come; a movie like The Master is either the best or worst film ever made, and that's all part of the appeal. He made two indisputable masterpieces early on - Boogie Nights and Magnolia - and a third in There Will Be Blood back in '07. But you get the sense that his recent efforts will only get better with age.